


Welcome Assistance

by linndechir



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Bathing/Washing, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24198160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: Brasidas had seen a great many injuries in his life, and far worse ones than that, but the memory still sickened him. He had grown entirely too used to Alexios being invincible, a demi-god among mortals, who rarely left the battlefield with more than a dashing scratch.
Relationships: Alexios/Brasidas (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 169
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Welcome Assistance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



“Malákas! I’m going to –”

The rest of Alexios’ cursing was muffled and hard to make out, as he balanced on one foot and his left hand fiddled with the clasp of his sandal. After watching for a few seconds, Brasidas took pity on him. 

“Do you need help, my friend?” Maybe he hadn’t _planned_ to make Alexios flinch and lose his balance, but he didn’t regret it either. Alexios caught himself and after a moment a smile replaced the frown on his face. It usually did when he saw Brasidas, though less so this past day. Alexios had been in a foul mood ever since his right arm had been put in a sling, and Brasidas couldn’t entirely blame him for that. There were few things worse than when a man couldn’t rely on his body anymore, especially if he couldn’t be sure how well the injury would heal.

“I can wield a sword as well with my left as with my right, but clasps and buckles and knots?” Alexios scoffed in frustration, but he didn’t pull away when Brasidas put a hand on his shoulder.

“I can tell. I don’t believe you’ve taken off your armour since that battle.” He studied him closely – Alexios didn’t look as if he’d slept well, and he was far too pale. His arm had been bleeding profusely by the time Brasidas had dragged him back to the medic, the shattered bone sticking out of his flesh at a sickening angle. Brasidas had seen a great many injuries in his life, and far worse ones than that, but the memory still upset him. He had grown entirely too used to Alexios being invincible, a demi-god among mortals, who rarely left the battlefield with more than a dashing scratch. He hadn’t enjoyed the reminder that even Alexios was still mortal.

“At least you smell like you haven’t,” Brasidas continued. “Come, there’s a spring nearby, and the men will be eating soon. We won’t be disturbed.”

“Are you not supposed to eat with them?” Alexios asked, when he usually seemed quite eager to spend time with Brasidas. He looked … embarrassed, Brasidas realised after a moment. Of course no man would enjoy being so hampered, and few things were as much of a bother as not being able to use one’s right hand. And Brasidas supposed that a man like Alexios, who’d spent most of his life having to care for himself, was even less used to asking for assistance than a Spartan who’d always been surrounded by his own. When a Spartan was injured, his brothers cared for him as much as necessary. Brasidas would do no less for Alexios.

“They can save something for us. You need a bath more urgently than dinner.” Brasidas clasped his uninjured shoulder, and though Alexios looked like he wanted to object, he came along after a moment. There was a scream above them, and as Brasidas looked up, he saw an eagle soar through the sky. His faithful Ikaros, watching over him as he always did. That too brought a small smile to Alexios’ face as he trudged along.

“One might think you’ve never broken your arm before,” Brasidas said to break the oddly sullen silence. To his surprise Alexios laughed.

“No, I haven’t,” he said. “You make it sound like everyone breaks their arm. Have you?”

“Mhm, twice. Once when I was just starting out in the agoge. A harmless accident, though it certainly didn’t make a good early impression.”

When he fell silent, Alexios prompted, “And the second? I sense an embarrassing story.”

Brasidas laughed. “A little. I was twelve and sought to impress a polemarch who we’d all heard was looking for a new eromenos. So I challenged an older, stronger boy to a fight, who unsurprisingly gave me a very thorough beating. To impress _his_ erastes, as it was.”

Their shoulders brushed comfortably as they walked past the Spartan encampment, where the men who weren’t on watch were gathering to eat. Brasidas nodded at them as they went past and explained briefly where they were heading, but unfortunately Alexios didn’t leave it at that.

“So, another boy broke your arm, and I take it the polemarch was not very impressed with you?”

“No, not at all. He called me a stupid brat and told me to learn how to use my head while I couldn’t use my arm.”

“Ha! You took that lesson to heart at least.”

“I did. I even thanked him for it many years later, but he couldn’t even remember he’d said it.” They’d reached the spring, a quiet little place where the trees offered much needed shade from the still burning hot evening sun, and Brasidas stopped in front of Alexios. It had always been in his nature to try and lighten the mood when he could – life was serious enough without the constant frown many of his fellow Spartans seemed to have etched into their face – but the truth was that exchanging childhood stories was the last thing on his mind. He looked down at Alexios’ right arm, heavily bandaged and resting in a sling.

“I was lucky both times. Clean breaks that healed quickly. Nothing like this.” After Pylos, Brasidas had limped for months, unsure if he’d ever be able to stand in a phalanx again. He’d tried to keep up his cheer then, too, but in truth he’d felt as if his life had been all but over. Yes, there were other things to life than battle, especially for a man of his intelligence and experience, but he was still Spartan, and a Spartan who couldn’t fight was no Spartan at all. And surely Alexios, no matter where he’d spent his youth, was still Spartan enough to feel the same way.

“It’s just a nuisance,” Alexios said dismissively, although the shrug he gave made him flinch in pain.

“A nuisance? The medic said you might not regain full strength of your arm, and that man knows what he is doing.” They hadn’t spoken about it since right after the battle, when Brasidas had dragged Alexios back to camp, but Brasidas had assumed that was what had caused Alexios’ dark mood. Not a bit of embarrassment about pesky armour clasps.

“I heal quickly. I do,” Alexios said, and there was such conviction in his voice that Brasidas couldn’t dismiss it as bravado. “One time in Phokis, I was skewered by this gigantic boar. It ripped me open – I had to push my bowels back in after killing it. A week later I was back on the road. Here, let me show you.”

He touched the side clasp of his armour, then groaned and gave Brasidas an almost pleading look. Brasidas still didn’t quite know what to believe, but he stepped in and did what he’d come to do in the first place – he undid the clasps and carefully helped Alexios out of his cuirass, and he took his belt off him, too, and after a moment the red tunic he was wearing underneath. It was not quite how Brasidas had imagined the first time he might see Alexios naked. There were enough scars on Alexios’ body, but most of them did indeed look quite well healed, even though Alexios had most likely stitched most of them up himself. Mercenaries didn’t have personal medics travelling with them.

Alexios looked at him, stood there in nothing but his sandals and a loincloth, and took Brasidas’ hand to guide it to a big, knotted scar on his stomach. Brasidas brushed his fingertips over the raised skin, then pressed his palm against it. Neatly healed, and he’d seen Alexios climb and run and fight – his agility, his flexibility, his grace. He did not move like a man whose scars caused him any discomfort. A wound such as this should have left him crippled.

“Here,” Alexios said softly, his muscles twitching underneath the careful touch of Brasidas’ hand, and the medic’s warning did not seem quite so urgent anymore. If Alexios could walk away from having his gut ripped open, what was a broken arm to him, no matter how bad the break?

“You truly have been blessed by the gods, haven’t you?” Brasidas asked – he’d meant for it to come out lightly, but his tone was more reverent than he’d intended. The men joked about it often enough, and Alexios _was_ exceptionally fast, exceptionally strong, and some of the things he could do … but battles were confusing and chaotic, and a man could see all kinds of strange things out of the corner of his eye. Brasidas wasn’t sure he’d ever truly believed that Alexios was the son of Zeus or whatever it was the men assumed about him – especially since he hardly behaved like a hero from the legends. But now? Maybe there was more to those stories after all.

“Maybe so.” Alexios shrugged, like it didn’t truly matter to him one way or another. “Though right now I wish my mother had dunked me in the river Styx as a child.” 

And just like that the moment had passed, that odd sensation of glimpsing at something that wasn’t quite meant for mortal eyes. Maybe Brasidas had fretted for nothing, if Alexios was so unconcerned. He was cocky, but not stupid. Brasidas looked away, towards the spring.

“Well, it’s not the river Styx and it won’t make you invulnerable, but at least it’ll wash off the sweat, so how about it?”

“I am still too dressed to bathe,” Alexios said, and the way he cocked his hip was as distracting as the tone he used, almost as if – but then he ducked his head as if in embarrassment. “You really don’t need to help me, Brasidas. I’ll manage, and it’s … it’s beneath you, isn’t it?”

“You forget that friends may help each other as well, not only slaves. Allow me.” With that he dropped to one knee in front of him to rid him of his remaining clothes, and maybe the knowing look he gave Alexios was quite calculated, but it was most certainly worth it when Alexios breathed in sharply. Alexios was breathtaking, even with his arm in that sling, and Brasidas was almost tempted to lean in and kiss his strong thighs, to brush his lips over Alexios’ cock and see how long it would take him to make it harden under his touch. But that wasn’t why he’d brought him here.

His own armour followed suit quickly once he’d undressed Alexios, for he had no intention of wading into the water fully dressed. It did not escape him then that Alexios was watching him – not in the way boys watched each other, measuring each other’s strength, wondering how they’d compare in battle, but in that furtive way of someone who wanted to touch and barely allowed himself to look. Brasidas smiled to himself – so it hadn’t only been him then, wondering what might happen if he did more than only look.

The water was refreshing after a day underneath the sun, and Alexios let out a pleased sigh. Brasidas had brought a washcloth and some soap, and after rinsing the day’s grime off his own body, he set out to wash Alexios, more thoroughly than he had himself. He lathered the soap over his broad back at first, his shoulders, his arms, and if he accidentally reached past the fabric to brush his fingertips over a scar here and another one there, well … Alexios did not complain, and so Brasidas did not stop.

“Tell me about this one,” Brasidas said as his palm covered Alexios’ upper arm. Alexios hesitated briefly, but then he told him – one of his first proper fights as a boy on Kephallonia, where a jagged blade had caught him across the arm. It had healed within days, he claimed, and Brasidas found that he had no trouble believing him.

“And this one?” Brasidas rubbed the washcloth in soothing circles over Alexios’ side, down to his hip, where a raised scar sat right at the juncture to his thigh. A mace, if Brasidas had to guess – they always left such ugly marks, even when they healed well.

“The battle for Megaris,” Alexios said and sighed quietly. He was standing in front of Brasidas, his head bowed in relaxation, his tense muscles slowly softening under Brasidas’ patient touch. “I thought at first that Athenian had splintered my hip, but it wasn’t so bad after all. Still, I was limping for days, when I went to see …”

He trailed off, shook his head quickly. “It was fine soon after. Looked worse than it felt.”

As Brasidas washed him, scrubbing sweat and dust and dried blood off his skin, always careful not to get his bandaged arm wet, he made Alexios tell him about every scar on his body – some were laughably mundane, others came with stories Brasidas would not have believed from any other man. All of them, even the most serious ones, had apparently left Alexios with nothing worse than marred skin.

Alexios’ breath was going fast by the time Brasidas crouched in front of him to wash his thighs, his calves, even his feet, before his hands, still slick with soap, the washcloth discarded, slid up his legs again. Brasidas wasn’t quite sure _when_ Alexios had hardened, it must have been while he’d been washing his back. He looked magnificent like this, even better than Brasidas had imagined when he’d indulged in some idle thoughts at night.

“I – That I can take care of myself, even with my left hand,” Alexios said quickly, and his beard couldn’t quite hide his flush. 

“I’m sure you could, but there is no need,” Brasidas said, his hand sliding closer still. Alexios’ breath hitched, and this time he didn’t look away, didn’t stop himself from letting his gaze roam over Brasidas’ naked body. “Unless my assistance is no longer welcome.”

“No. I mean, it is – welcome. Very much so.” Alexios chuckled, though more at himself it seemed than at anything else. He kept looking down at Brasidas as if entranced, and the smile stayed on his face. “You didn’t plan this, did you?”

Brasidas laughed as he wrapped his hand around Alexios’ cock, the other one sliding around his hip to cup his arse again. 

“Plan something like this? That doesn’t sound like me at all.”

“No? I would say that sounds exactly like you, you can be quite conniving.” Alexios laughed again, breathlessly, before the sound turned into a low moan. His left hand went for Brasidas’ shoulder to hold on to him for balance, and the muscles in his thighs twitched beautifully as he tried to hold still. Brasidas stroked his cock slowly, barely pretending anymore that the point of this was to wash him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, but no, I really just meant to be helpful. I didn’t think you would be in the mood for anything like this.” 

“I am always in the mood for this,” Alexios said, playful bravado in his breathless voice. His cock was hot and thick in Brasidas’ hand, if not for the soap Brasidas would have wrapped his lips around it without hesitation, eager to taste him. He’d thought that Alexios was beautiful since he first met him, but ever since Korinth they had so rarely been truly alone. 

“So I’ve heard,” Brasidas said. He cupped Alexios’ balls with his other hand, and Alexios’ fingers dug more firmly into his shoulder.

“You – you have?” Surprise in his voice, and something that wasn’t quite embarrassment, but a bashfulness that didn’t fit his earlier boisterous tone.

“You do have a bit of a reputation. The Eagle Bearer, as vigorous in bed as he is in battle. Blessed by the gods in more than one way.” 

Alexios looked at the same time flattered and a bit awkward, but when he saw that Brasidas was still smiling, his arrogance won.

“There haven’t even been that many Spartans. Do you all gossip among yourselves like fishwives?” Alexios’ voice was hoarse with want by now, and Brasidas squeezed his cock a bit more tightly to draw another gasp from him.

“No, but as you know, I have my ways of finding things out.” The truth was that he’d overheard some gossip by the camp fire one time, about a year ago, because a man from another regiment they’d been working with _had_ apparently found the time to be alone with Alexios. Brasidas hadn’t expected the pang of envy he’d felt at that.

“And here I am injured and cannot show you how much truth there is to those rumours.” The grandstanding tone Alexios seemed to be going for fell short when he gasped in pleasure, and he utterly failed to stay quiet when Brasidas stroked him to completion. A few drops splattered over Brasidas’ beard, and he didn’t bother to wash them off when he cleaned the soap and come off Alexios’ cock. When he straightened up again, stepping so very close to Alexios until they breathed the same air, Alexios was staring at him, hungry as if he hadn’t only just been sated. His hand was still on Brasidas’ shoulder, though he hardly seemed to need the support now.

Brasidas wanted to say something – he truly hadn’t meant for this to happen, had only wished to offer his help, and maybe raise Alexios’ spirits, but anything else … By the gods, he wouldn’t have waited until Alexios was injured for that, when the last thing he wanted was to be careful with him. In his dreams Alexios was relentless and wild as he wrestled Brasidas to the ground, eyes bright with laughter as he kissed him and touched him and maybe fucked him the way Brasidas hadn’t been fucked in years. He wanted to say something, but he’d barely opened is mouth before Alexios kissed him.

It wasn’t as wild as he’d imagined in his dreams, but it certainly didn’t lack in intensity as Alexios pulled him close as best he could. He kissed Brasidas breathless, then nuzzled his beard, kissing away the drops of come that had been caught in it. 

“As much as it suits you,” Alexios said with a laugh, and Brasidas couldn’t help but smile against his lips. He tried not to sleep with his friends, at least not with good friends, not with ones he liked enough that he could imagine wanting more than mere friendship … Going down that path rarely led to anything other than unnecessary heartbreak. Both with fellow Spartans – their duty was always to the state, to their syssition, to their marriage, to all the countless demands Sparta put on them that came long before any personal affections – and even more so with outsiders, who rarely had a place in his life for long. Alexios was an odd mixture of both, and all the harder to resist for it. He understood who Brasidas was, what it meant to be Spartan, and yet he still stood outside the rigid rules that had controlled Brasidas’ entire life, and that of most men he cared about. And he was entirely too likeable.

But the good thing about Alexios was that he rarely stuck around for long – every time Brasidas thought he would get too attached, Alexios was back on the road, hunting down another Cultist, or desperately trying to chase down that mad sister of his. Maybe a little indulgence, to cheer them both up after Alexios’ injury, couldn’t hurt. And next time all would be forgotten.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Brasidas asked anyway, even as he knew that Alexios couldn’t resist a challenge. He leant his forehead against Brasidas’, as if he wanted to keep leaning on him somehow while he took his left hand off his shoulder and reached between them, drawing a low moan from Brasidas when he touched his cock.

“I admit I’m actually not very good at _that_ with my left hand,” he said, though Brasidas didn’t think he’d be particularly picky about how he was touched right now. Alexios’ skin was warm and smooth underneath his fingertips, except in all those places where scars spoke of countless injuries he’d survived and shrugged off. 

“But I am, fortunately, very good with other parts that haven’t been injured,” Alexios added and winked at him. And when he kissed him again, he licked into his mouth so shamelessly that Brasidas held on to him for support this time. 

When their lips parted, Alexios gave him an amused look. “By the gods, Brasidas, if I’d known I needed to break my arm to make you touch me, I would have done so myself.”

“Now you flatter me too much,” Brasidas said, but the words still brought a smile to his face. He was quite happy to let Alexios show off a little, and maybe after that he could think of a few more things Alexios might still need _assistance_ with before they returned to the others. They probably shouldn’t take _too_ long lest someone came looking for them, but they weren’t in a hurry just yet.

Soon enough, Alexios’ arm would be healed and their ways would part as they always did – and then Brasidas would have plenty of time to be sensible again and not let himself dwell on possible demi-gods he liked far too much for his own good.


End file.
